


A Study In Poetry

by miso_grace



Category: Eurovision Song Contest RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, OC Peanut Gallery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-05-23 18:44:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14939777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miso_grace/pseuds/miso_grace
Summary: Ermal is a slightly pretentious English major and Fabrizio is the chill Art major we all aspire to be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to all the beautiful souls in the discord server who let me bounce my ideas off of them. <3  
> I am not a native speaker, this is unbetaed and I had wine while writing this, all mistakes are 100% mine.  
> Let's just hope nobody I know in real life ever finds this.

It was 8:15 on a Wednesday morning in the first week of term and Ermal was already regretting signing up for a lecture on poetry from the 16th century onwards. Now, Ermal didn’t have anything against poetry per say, hell he even liked it, but he was not sure if he could survive an entire semester of people blathering on and on about Lord Byron and Percy Shelly, when clearly the latter’s wife was much more exciting. The only romantic poets worth mentioning if you asked him were Blake and maybe Wordsworth. He also wasn’t exactly looking forward to people getting the types of sonnets mixed up for the nth time. They covered that shit during first term, for Christ’s sake. And the lecture hadn’t even started yet.

Why had he signed up for this again?

Alright he knew why he’d signed up for this, it was the only remotely interesting course that also fit his schedule and beggars can’t be choosers. That didn’t mean however that he had to show any sort of enthusiasm for this lecture

He made his way into the lecture hall and selected a place in the middle of the front half of the room. You didn’t want to sit right at the front with all the teacher’s pets and risk getting spit on by your professor but you also didn’t want to sit in the back with the slackers that never had anything worthwhile to contribute either. Slowly more people that he knew from various other classes in the past, the English department was tiny, trickled in. Francesca, who he knew from contemporary female Irish writing last term waved at him in greeting before sitting down with her friends a row behind him. Elio and Giovanni who probably only did English because it was a mostly female field of study and not out of any particular interest in the subject of English Literature, slid right into the last row, clearly not planning on paying any attention whatsoever.

While Ermal got along quite well with some of the other students he didn’t really have many close friends in the departmant, probably because he was so opinionated and because of his tendency to argue with both lecturers and his fellow students about his views. This meant that he usually sat alone in class which suited him just fine, since it meant that there was nobody trying to distract him with inane chatter.

....Well, seems like he spoke to soon, as there was currently someone sliding into the seat next to him. Ermal looked up and didn’t recognise the man from any of his classes. Strange; he’d at least seen every other student of their small class before, at least in passing. Also, who just willingly sits down in the seat right next to a complete stranger? Ermal nodded at the newcomer in greeting before looking back down at his desk.

He couldn’t deny though that the man intrigued him, he wanted to know what he was doinghere. Before he could ask however the lecturer strolled in and he was forced to ignore the mystery, at least until after the lecture.

The professor started out by introducing herself, handing out the syllabus, going through the syllabus, etc, nothing Ermal wasn’t used to by now and so he tuned out.

Or at least he tried to tune out until his seat neighbour gently elbowed him in the ribs. Ermal turned towards him and just looked at him expectantly.

“What is going on?” the other guy asked.

Alright then, clearly an idiot.

“We’re just going over the syllabus for this term, y’know, what we’re gonna talk about and all that stuff.”

“Ah, cool, thanks” the stranger nodded and turned back to his own desk.

If you asked Ermal he still didn’t look like he followed along entirely, but that wasn’t any of his business, now was it? Though now he was even more intriguedabout what the guy was doing in this lecture. He couldn’t be a fresher, this particular module wasn’t available for first years so he should be familiar with the procedure by now.

As the Professor continued droning on about thing that everyone already knew anyways Ermal couldn’t stop himself from sneaking a few more glances at his mysterious new seatmate. His seatmate who looked more and more confused every time Ermal looked at him. And the more confused the poor sod looked the firmer Ermal’s resolve to talk to him him after class and figure out what his deal was grew.

But alas, he never got the chance to because as soon as the prof dismissed the other was out of the lecture theatre and Ermal had to content himself with wait for at least another week before talking with the guy.

He turned around in his seat towards Francesca and her friends.

“Do you know who that was?”

“Who?”

“The dude that sat next to me.”

“Oh, you mean the absolute hottie!”, Francesca said, “sorry dude, not a clue, I‘ve never seen him before. He was a sight for sore eyes though.”

“Oh. My. God. Francesca will you stop thirsting after anyone and everyone please.” one of the other girls, Maria if he remembered correctly, groaned. Clearly they weren’t going to be any help either.

“But tell me Ermal, why do you want to know more about the hot mystery man?” Francesca asked and threw a saucy wink his way.

“I’m just curious, he’s weird and none of us have ever seen him around before. What exactly are you trying to imply?”

“Who, me? Why, nothing, of course!” Another wink

Someone remind him, why was he friends with her again?

“Francesca!”

“What? I’m just saying...” she trailed off with another one of those damned winks.

Aaaand that was his cue to leave

“Well, as lovely as it’s been talking to you, I gotta dash! Bye”

“Sure you do, sure you do! Good look with looking for your hot mystery man!”

Ermal gleefully flipped her the bird and strode out of the room.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They talk, much to the annoyance of their professor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally managed to finish the chapter, yay.  
> Will I ever stop writing excessive dialogue? Maybe someday, but until then please bear with me.

Another Wednesday morning, another poetry lecture. And today Ermal was going to find out who the random stranger that had sat next to him last week was, he’d make sure of it. If he was being honest, he’d even say he was looking forward to seeing the other student again more than the lecture.

He arrived early and made his way to what was now unoffically his seat for the rest of the rest of the term, hoping his neighbour from next week would follow this unspoken campus rule as well and end up next to him again.And just as Ermal was starting to lose hope he’d turn up at all the other guy slid into the seat next to him with less then even a minute to spare until the start of the lecture.

Today’s lecture was about sonnets. Ermal’s favourite topic. Or, more precisely, his favourite topic to fight over with other students, though really, they brought it on themselves. It wasn’t exactly his fault if they couldn’t distinguish between a Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnet or wouldn’t recognise a Spenserian sonnet if it hit them in the face with a brick, now was it?

Ermal glanced to his right and once again the guy next to him looked completely and utterly lost. And since he felt like he knew enough on the topic to not listen to the professor droning on and the other guy didn’t seem to follow the lecture at all Ermal decided that now was as good a time as any to finally solve the mystery. He gently nudged the other guy with his elbow.

“Are you alright there? You look a little lost?”

First the other guy just blinked at him.  
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine, just my English isn’t the best, makes it a bit hard to follow the lecture.”

Alright then. Wait, no.

“....What?”  
Multiple heads swivelled around to stare at them. Oooops; Ermal may have been a bit louder than originally intended, but really, who could blame him.

“I’m not that great at English”, the other guy repeated.

“Yeah, I got that,” said Ermal, “what I don’t get though is what you’re doing here then. You do realise this is a second year English lit lecture, right? Held in English.”

His neighbour rolled his eyed. “I have noticed that by now, yes. I’m not entirely stupid, you know.”

Ermal just barely held back a scoff. That was seriously debatable.  
“Anyways, that still doesn’t explain why you’re actually here. And I’m pretty certain you’re not an English major, no offense, but you wouldn’t have made it this far with shitty English. So?”

“Well,...” said the other, but never got around to finishing his sentence.

“If the gentlemen in the 6th row would be so kind as to continue their surely riveting conversation after I finished my lecture.” interrupted their professor.

“Don’t think I’ll let you off the hook this easily, I still want to know what exactly you’re doing in an English Poetry lecture when you don’t even understand English that well. You up for coffee after class? Oh, and I’m Ermal by the way.”

The other guy looked completely befuddled yet again. Ermal was beginning to suspect that befuddlement was his natural state of being.

“I...can’t actually, I’ve got another class I need to get to straight after the lecture and then a bunch of other plans,” he said slowly, “but I’m free all day tomorrow, if you’re that curious. And I’m Fabrizio, nice to meet you.”

Yeah, that part was still up for debate if you asked Ermal.

“Gentlemen!” came their professor’s sharp remark.

“Yes, professor, sorry professor” said Ermal while Fabrizio looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.  
Turning back to Fabrizio he said “You bet I’m still curious. Tomorrow sounds great, 1pm at the café straight across the road, the one with the amazing pastries sound good to you?”  
He ignored the dirty looks the professor was throwing in their direction and looked straight at the other, who just nodded.

When the professor finally wrapped up the lecture and dismissed them Fabrizio was once again the first one to dash out the lecture theatre. Ermal too tried to beat a hasty retreat before he’d have to deal with the peanut gallery again, but Francesca was faster.  
“Hey, Ermal, do want me to send you my notes? Seeing as you were to busy flirting to actually take any notes of your own.”

“I most certainly was not flirting!” he protested.

“You weren’t? That’s not what it looked like to me though.”

“Francesca, please, I assure you I was not flirting with Fabrizio.”

“Fabrizio ey? So you found out his name. What else did you find out, c’mon spill the tea!”

“What, so you can spread gossip? Yeah, not gonna happen” Who knew what she’d say about him in connection to Fabrizio.

Francesca pouted.  
“Spoilsport!”

Ermal just ignored her, knowing full well that she didn’t actually mean it, finally gathering his things and leaving the lecture theatre.  
While he was walking along the halls of the university he couldn’t help but shake his head at Francesca’s insinuations. Him, flirting with Fabrizio? Yeah right. Why would he even flirt with Fabrizio? Sure, he wasn’t unattractive, but that was just an objective conclusion anyone’d reach by looking at him. And yeah, his cluelessness could possibly be a bit endearing, but still, not enough reason for Ermal to actually flirt with him.  
Why was he even giving so much weight to Francesca’s words, he knew she just liked teasing him.  
Ermal shook his head again, as if to banish any unwelcome thoughts and set off to find some coffee and food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed the new chapter. If you liked it please leave kudos or comments.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is no Fabrizio, Ermal is a little shit and so are his friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, I am so sorry this took me this long.  
> Anyways, here have a new chapter. It's short, it's cracky, it's mostly dialogue and possibly not all that good but I hope you enjoy anyways.  
> Thanks to Eisha for the wonderful nickname for Vige

Besides poetry lectures Wednesday also meant lunch with his friends, since all their lunch breaks lined up. Today this might have been a mistake Ermal soon realised.

“So, did you learn anything about that mysterious stranger you couldn’t shut up about last week?” Marco asked.

“I did, his name is Fabrizio and he’s not the brightest bulb of the bunch.”

“Ermal, be nice!”

“I’m just telling the truth. Anybody who attends a second year English Lit class with limited English skills is a little bit stupid.” he defended himself

“Well that’s not fair to people struggling with learning languages.” Andrea chimed in.

Ermal balled up his napkin and threw it at him. “Oh shut up Vintagetinini, you know that’s not what I meant. Obviously I understand that speaking more than one language is hard work and that just because someone isn’t as eloquent in a foreign language doesn’t make them stupid, but we are talking about a second year English Literature lecture, I think it’s fair to presume a certain level of proficiency for that.”  
Why was he friends with these people again?

“Ok, but did you learn anything else about this Fabrizio. Like. for example, why he is going to a lecture on English poetry that he can’t understand?” Andrea asked, throwing the napkin back at Ermal.

“Nope, not yet, we had to stop talking before the prof threw us out of the lecture.” He shrugged.

At that Marco choked on his sandwich. “Wouldn’t be the first time that happened to you” he said between burst of coughing and laughter. Andrea snickered while patting the poor guy on the back.

“Oh shut up Marco!”

“Hey, I’m just stating facts!” he saud, still coughing, his face slowly turning an alarming shade of red. “Oy, no need to slap me that hard Andrea!” Andrea just grinned at him.

“Anyways,” Marco continued after he had freed his wind pipe of his ham sandwich, “what do you mean by ‘not yet’?”

O god, his friends were all awful gossips, and he really hoped, for the sake of his own sanity, that they would never meet Francesca and her friends.  
“Well, since we couldn’t discuss his reasons for being there during the lecture we decided to do it on our own free time. We’re meeting for coffee tomorrow and I’ll be damned if I don’t get the entire story out of him.”

“We? Or did you just decide that and leave him no choice in the matter?” Of course Dino would choose to join the conversation now.

“I would never!” Ermal cried out indignantly. Around the table he was met with sceptically raised eyebrows and a badly stifled snort from Andrea. “You got something to say to me Vintagetinini? Then say it to my face!”

“No, nothing.” Andrea said, at least two octaves too high.

Ermal glared at him.

“Ermal, if you start throwing food at him, so help me god...” Marco said with a long suffering sigh. Ermal let his hand drop back down by his side.

“You guys are the worst.”he said, pouting.

After that they finished their lunch in peace, with minimal further teasing. Once lunch was over and they all went their separate ways Ermal couldn’t help but think about Fabrizio on his way to his next seminar. About their coffee meeting the next day, about what he might tell him, about what could have possibly possessed him to attend this particular lecture. The other was an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a riddle. Well, one thing was for certain though, thanks to Fabrizio, Ermal’s semester was already promising to be infinitely more interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this little bit of silliness. If you did leaving kudos or comments would be really lovely.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we finally find out what Fabrizio is doing in that English lecture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look who's back after half an eternity. Yes, I am still alive, sorry for the long wait.  
> Yes, I do realise that all this is not how the university system works, but you know what, it's my story, I can do whatever I want.  
> Fair warning, I still write an exorbitant amount of dialogue  
> As always this is un-betad so all mistakes are my own and it also explains why this is garbage.  
> Anyhoodle, without further ado, here is the new chapter, I hope you enjoy!

Thursday afternoon couldn’t come quickly enough for Ermal. Fabrizio intrigued him and he couldn’t wait to find out more about him.  
Now it was Thursday morning and Ermal was pacing his room nervously while Marco sat on the bed, shovelling gummy worms into his mouth and generally being unhelpful.

“God, Ermal, slow down, you’re gonna wear though the carpet like this! And why are you so nervous anyways, it’s not like this is a date. Or is there something you need to tell me? It is actually a date?”

Ermal stopped short.

“No!?! Of course it’s not a date! But what if Fabrizio thinks it is? I did invite him to coffee on our free day. God, he probably does think it’s a date! _Fuuuuuuck_!” He ran a hand through his hair, messing up the carefully styled curls.

“Alright Ermal, breathe!”, Marco said. “So, what exactly did you say when you asked him out for coffee?”

“I didn’t ask him out!”

“Ermal, focus”

“Well, I just said that I wanted to know why he was in the lecture if he doesn’t speak English and since we couldn’t talk during the lecture I suggested we go for coffee of that was alright with him.” Ermal explained.

“See, then I’m sure he won’t think it’s a date either. Besides, it’s totally normal to go for coffee with new people from your courses during the beginning of term you doofus. You’re just overthinking this Ermal.”

“Thanks Marco.” Ermal sat down on the bed and bumped his shoulder against Marco’s.  
“Now,” he said, jumping up with renewed energy, “I still need you to help me choose an outfit, I want to look approachable and not like a pretentious asshat and certainly not like I thought this was a date.”

Marco fell back on the bed with a loud groan.

He ended up finding an outfit that satisfied his specific needs, even though Marco proved to be of little to no help.  
And now he was standing outside the café, waiting for Fabrizio, who was already 15 minutes late. _Just great_.

Another 10 minutes later Fabrizio finally arrived, out of breath and hair disheveled. He wore a pair of paint splattered jeans and a well loved Metallica shirt, clearly not having shared Ermal’s satorical worries.

“Oh my god Ermal, I am so terribly sorry!”, he apologised profusely once he had caught his breath. “I..I was working on this project and completely lost track of time, I am so sorry, I really did not mean to be this late.”

Ermal sighed. “It’s alright. And you’re here now. let’s just head in, yeah?”

They went inside, grabbed a table and placed their order. The time waiting for their drinks to arrive was spent with slightly stilted small-talk but as soon as their orders arrived Ermal cut straight to the chase.

“So Fabrizio, spill!”, he said, looking at the other over the rim of his mug, “What are you, by your own account not that great with the English language, doing in a second year English Poetry Lecture?”

“Well, it kind of a long-ish story?”

“I’ve got all the time in the world today, now talk!”

“Alright, so,” Fabrizio said and took a sip from his coffee, “as you may have guessed I am not an English major. As a matter of fact, I’m not a language or literature student at all. But I do enjoy writing, have since middle school. Mostly short stories, some poetry and song lyrics but recently I’ve been trying to write a bit of a longer story and got stuck in a bit of a rut and I thought that maybe attending a literature course here at uni might help me and-“

“But why an English lecture? And one on poetry? Why not attend and Italian literature course?” Ermal interrupted

“I did in fact want to do that, I’m not as stupid as you seem to think, you know.”

Ermal tried, unsuccessfully judging by Fabrizio’s glare, to disguise his snort as a cough.

“Are you actually gonna let me finish, or should I just stop because you’re not actually interested?” Fabrizio asked

“Sorry, sorry, please, do continue.” Ermal mimicked zipping his most shut.

“So, as I was saying, I tried at the Italian department, and there would have been a course on the modern Italian novel, but since it’s a seminar it’s only open for Italian literature students. And then there was this lecture I would have wanted to attend instead, but, according to the supervisor it was already full because they would be holding it in a small lecture theatre so I couldn’t do that either and the other relevant lectures clashed with my actual classes.  
Then I thought about trying Spanish lit lectures, since Italian and Spanish are from the same language family and I did have three years of Spanish classes in school, so I could have muddled through, but again, none of the lectures fit into my schedule and so I had to forget about that idea as well.  
And then I somehow got talking with someone from the English department and they said that all lectures are basically open to anyone and they don’t have an attendance roll or anything and I could either just go as is or even try to enrol in the lecture and maybe get some extra credits. And so I ended up looking at the English lit lectures for this term and the poetry one was the only one that I could fit into my schedule, but I thought it would be better than nothing. And in all the excitement I kinda forgot about the little problem of me only knowing rudimentary English.” he finished sheepishly.

Ermal laughed. “Oh wow, now that’s what I call dedication. But why did you come back for the second lecture?”

Fabrizio blushed and shrugged. “I guess I didn’t want to admit defeat.”  
“Fair.” Ermal nodded. “But now I’m curious again, what do you actually study?”

“Oh, I’m an Art student.” Fabrizio said. So that explained the paint on the pants.  
They ordered a second round of coffee and some cake and continued talking, about their studies, about themselves. Ermal was surprised by how easily the conversation flowed despite the fact that they barely knew each other.  
It turned out that Fabrizio was in his third year at art school and had spent a year after graduation backpacking through South America, since he didn’t really know what he wanted to do with his life yet and Ermal had to admit that maybe, just maybe his first impression of Fabrizio had been a teeny tiny bit wrong.

“You know what,” Ermal said suddenly, “If you want I’ll help you with the lecture and your English”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t have offered otherwise.”

“Then sure, I’d love that!” Fabrizio said

“Cool! But that means you’re paying for coffee today.” Ermal may have forgotten his wallet at home.

“Alright, alright, fair enough.” Fabrizio smiled and waved the waitress over for the check.

“Soooo,” Ermal said once the stood outside the café again, “which way are you headed now?”

“That way.” Fabrizio pointed down the street behind Ermal.

“Well, I’m headed the opposite way, so, see you Wednesday?”

“See you Wednesday!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I hoped you liked this little bit, please leave kudos and/or comments if you did?


End file.
